One of Japan’s biggest automakers, Toyota Motor Corp, has suspended its production in Japan due to supply disruptions following the twin earthquakes that struck the southern island region of Kumamoto late last week.

The company said it had stopped production at a factory in Kyushu, where the quakes struck late Thursday and early Saturday, killing at least 42 people.

The shutdown will apply to other plants in Japan through Friday. Production will resume depending on the availability of parts.

Yesterday, an official in Japan said 11 people were still missing due to the twin earthquakes.

Although she did not give a location breakdown on the missing persons, Japanese media reported that eight of them were in Minamiaso, a mountainous village near the Mount Aso volcano.

As at 4pm on Sunday, rescue helicopters were seen going into and out of the area, much of which has been cut off by landslides and road and bridge damage.

Aerial footage from Japanese TV also showed teams of rescuers going through small clusters of destroyed homes and other buildings.

The number of people taking shelter after the quakes has doubled to more than 180,000

Kyodo news service, citing the Kumamoto prefecture government, says 183,882 people were in shelters in the prefecture on Sunday morning.

On Saturday, there were around 90,000 people. Many others slept in their cars or sheltered under tarps and other protection overnight.

Search efforts resumed on Sunday morning for the missing victims of the earthquakes that killed the 42 people. The search is focused on debris-strewn communities in a mountainous area near Mount Aso, the largest active volcano in Japan.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the Defense Ministry was coordinating with the U.S. military in Japan to add U.S. aircraft to the search and recovery effort.

Landslides from Saturday’s magnitude-7.3 earthquake have blocked roads and destroyed bridges, making it difficult to access the area east of Kumamoto, a city of 740,000 on the southwestern island of Kyushu.

Overnight rainfall did not appear to cause any more landslides, as had been feared, and the skies had cleared by morning.

About 80,000 homes in Kumamoto prefecture still didn’t have electricity on Sunday. Japanese media reported that an estimated 400,000 households were without running water.

(Asian Correspondant)